THE INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE OF YOUTH WRITING CENTERS

Time’s Up, Teenage Survivors of Recent School Shootings

“Adults 1, kids 0.” — Dinesh D’Souza tweeting about Florida lawmakers rejecting a bill to ban assault rifles days after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

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Our country has experienced yet another completely avoidable tragedy. Innocent lives were cut short. Families have been torn apart. In the wake of such a horrific event, caused once again by a gun getting into the wrong hands thanks to our nearly non-existent gun control laws, I hereby declare that time’s up for those who’ve been getting away with this stuff for far too long: teen school-shooting victims.

Your moment in the spotlight is over, underage survivors of last week’s shooting who had the audacity to immediately speak up about furthering the safety of all America’s children. We see through your tactics to silence adults who want nothing more than to supply the nation’s youths with firearms and ammunition. We’re done listening to your left-wing talking points like “Stop letting us get killed” and “No more mass shootings.” For up to and not more than an entire week, you’ve been oppressing adults who’ve received NRA funding, and we won’t stand for it anymore.

Over the last few days, you’ve been parading around from funeral to funeral acting like you know everything about school shootings since you literally just experienced one. How dare you? You think you’re old enough to understand complex issues like, “If your classmate was too unstable to have a backpack, should he have been given access to a mass murder weapon?” and “Gun: It good or it bad?” No, only old men who accuse children of bogus left-wing conspiracies are allowed to tackle stuff like that.

If you think you can so cavalierly champion for gun control within 24 hours of your former classmate getting extremely easy access to a high-powered rifle, taking it to your school, and shooting specifically at you and all of your friends, you’re sorely mistaken. What gives you the right? Going through something awful doesn’t make you more qualified to speak truth to the something awful that you experienced; it makes you a crisis actor. You’re merely acting like you were just in a crisis. Like a school shooting, for example.

We are so over listening to you plead for action from the government after witnessing your friends and teachers get shot and killed. We’re through with despicable behavior from you, like giving people across America reasons to hope for change. We are sick and tired of you going on television programs to express grief over the losses you’ve experienced and to send a message that accepting constant shootings as a way of life is not okay.

So we’re telling you once and for all: Your reign ends now. It’s time to let the adults do what they do best: nothing.